Robert has travel plans

Gloria posted this on her Facebook profile last night:

I just got a phone call from my missionary son, he's finally got travel plans! He's going to the airport day after tomorrow, Monday an 9:45AM headed for Mexico. Yippee!!!! I'm so excited for him. As soon as he gets there and settled, I'll post his new address on his facebook profile.

Listening

Today on our way to church, at the very last minute, I decided I needed something to read. Now, remember, my job or "calling" at church is ward librarian. I am the keeper of the library, along with Don. I have loads of things to read in the library. I even thought of that as I stood there debating what I was going to read. I snatched a book off the shelf, I even wondered which book to grab as there were 2 slim volumes of poetry, Carol Lynn Pearson's Beginnings & The Search. I grabbed the top one, The Search, & ran. Don was waiting for me in the car. We got to the library & I sat there & read my poetry, pondered it & thought, "I've missed this." I also thought, "I've been struggling so hard to read the Psalms & I can sit here, read these poems, & they mean something to me. Why can't I 'get' Psalms?"

Don teaches the priesthood lesson on the 4th Sunday. He said he was having a hard time with the lesson he was going to teach. He's a born teacher & seldom has a hard time with a lesson. I asked him what it was. He told me & showed me. It was "Turn to the Lord" by Elder Donald L. Hallstrom of the Presidency of the 70, given in the Sunday morning session of the April 2010 General Conference. I got excited & said, "We had that lesson last summer from Brother Burns (our home teacher). We discussed it." He didn't remember, but I gave him a couple of examples from my parents' life, an example from a family that is struggling right now here in town. And then, lo, & behold, one of the poems from my book leaped to mind, "To One Who Has Been Done Dirt." I quickly thumbed to it, read it aloud to him & then another one. He took my book, read it & took it with him to class. He used 3 poems. He told me later those poems were just what was missing from his lesson.

We got our temple recommends today. Tiffany (our niece) is going through the temple to take out her endowments in a couple of weeks & if the location is right, we can go with her!! I am so excited. She has been called to serve in the Switzerland Geneva French-speaking Mission.

I've stayed up way too late - again.

Nearer My God to Thee

I finally remembered the 2nd hymn the Whitney 2nd Ward sang in Stake Conference. Nearer My God to Thee, hymn 100. It was a beautiful arrangement.

Our niece, Tiffany Bartlomé, received her mission call to the Switzerland Geneva Mission French-speaking. I was telling the boys today, she won't have to tell people how to pronounce her name. That's where the Bartlomés come from.

Funnel cloud over Preston

OK, the big news is the funnel cloud over Preston. I don't know if there was more than one or just one. It happened about 2:30 p.m. Karen Naylor, job share partner, came out & asked if we had felt the earth quake about 2:30. No, we hadn't felt it. But then someone emailed a picture of a funnel cloud over the courthouse. It happened about 2:30. I snagged a picture of it from Joyce Williams' Facebook photo album. Is that called copyright infringement? I hope not.

Nick didn't think it was very cool that we had a funnel cloud & was glad he was in Logan at the time. Don is disappointed because he didn't see it. Don has a degree in meteorology & is fascinated with weather.

I thought it was pretty cool. It didn't touch down, that I know of, so it didn't hurt anyone. I remember when I was on my mission, my companion & I were sitting on the porch of the mission office eating our yogurt & the sky was all greenish black & it was eerily quiet. We decided to go in. A tornado jumped the mission office/home & landed in the area behind us.

A few months before that we had to take the elders home to Oshkosh, Wisc., after a tornado had hit. They were in Appleton, Wisc., for zone conference. It looked like a war zone. Probably the same zone conference a tornado touched down in Neenah, the city we lived in. When we went to zone conference, the elders, assistants & President & Sister Peel were all worried about us. Poor innocent, naive sisters, we didn't even know we'd had one.

There were several incidents of tornado on my mission, and a couple after, but never was hurt. They always stayed away from us.

I've worked at The Preston Citizen for 12 years now. I remember sitting through a fire in the building. The press was running & we were working on the paper as the firemen ran up & down the stairs. In fact, a lady across the park called the front desk & asked if we knew we were on fire. It was a chimney fire. Jessi was pregnant with Keziah at the time & Keziah is 11 now, so it must have been right after I started.

Another time an earthquake rattled the building. I was afraid the press would fall through the dance floor. That whole building is just propped up on stilts. That's probably why the funnel cloud rattled the building. It is so old. It was originally the Persiana Dance Hall. My parents met there at a dance over 65 years ago.

On another note, Carolyn corrected my correction, hehe. She writes:

... let's make that Brenden's great-grandpa Jarman who died, Janeen's dad. Great-Grandpa Ballif works at Stoke's grocery store and actually is looking quite good.

Actually, his great-grandpa Richard Ballif, 80, works at Stokes MarketPlace in Preston as a bagger. He is out in the parking lot wrestling those recalcitrant shopping carts that people just abandon in the parking lot.

I have a migraine tonight. Worked 12 hours & still have 7 pages to do in the morning. I think I'll go to bed. I got to have lunch with Don-Mike & Nick today, so I guess I won't wait up for Don-Mike.